The subject matter herein relates generally to latches for card edge connector systems.
In computers and other electronic equipment, circuit boards are utilized to which are mounted numerous electrical and electronic components. Smaller circuit cards are utilized to establish electrical connections to a larger circuit board in a manner that permits removal and disconnection, by inserting an edge of the card into a card edge connector mounted on the circuit board. The card edge connector includes an array of contacts connected to circuits of the circuit board. Contact sections of the contacts are exposed within a card receiving slot of the card edge connector to engage circuit pads on the circuit cards when the circuit cards are inserted into the card edge connectors. It is known to provide elongate retention members projecting from the board proximate to ends of the card edge connectors to facilitate guiding and mating of the circuit cards to the card edge connectors. The retention member typically extends along the entire ends of the circuit card and guides loading of the circuit card in a vertical direction directly into the slot of the card edge connector.
Known systems that use elongate retention members are not without disadvantages. For example, the retention members may interfere with electronic components mounted to the circuit cards. For example, some circuit cards have optical connectors mounted thereto. The optical connectors have optical fibers extending therefrom. The retention members tend to interfere with the optical fibers as the optical fibers exit the circuit card. The optical fibers may need to be bent around the retention members, which is undesirable. Additionally, loading the circuit cards into the card edge connectors may be difficult and require a high insertion force, particularly when a high number of contacts and contact pads are provided on the card edge connector and circuit card. Loading the circuit cards straight into the card edge connectors requires all of the contacts and contact pads to be mated simultaneously, which increases the insertion force.
It is desired to assure that all tolerance is eliminated between the circuit card and the card edge connector to eliminate looseness from the resulting mated assembly and to stabilize the circuit card against the effects of vibration and other movement. It is also desired to provide a more convenient manner of securing the circuit card to the card edge connector.